Cyberforce #1
Marc & Eric Silvestri
Image Comics
October 1992
Now, I missed the whole Image launch. Making no money after college severely crimped my comic budget and I read virtually nothing from 1990-1996. I did, however, keep my subscription to Comic Buyers Guide (Thanks Mom!!). So, I knew about it all, but did not read the issues.
Cyberforce #1 was one that I missed back in the day. So it was an easy choice to grab this one for a retro review. Of note, this one still has the Image #0 coupon where if you send in the coupon from this and other Image books, you could get a fancy Image #0.
This issue was pretty standard new #1 of a comic book stuff. Character being chased by military type people. Rescued by heroes, who are also being hunted by the authorities. The issue is all set up, which is fine for this type of thing. Bad guys are generic (“Blue Leader”). A couple things of note. I think all of the heroes have red glowing eyes and cyber skin, ala Colossus. Part of me is guessing that its just a design thing. I will explain.
So here is the head bad guy, Blue Leader, later identified as Ballistic. Oooh. She also has a glowy eye. You can’t see it yet, but she has a very odd costume choice, for a military type leader.
Now our heroes:
Ripclaw. No cyber except for his fingers – that are sharp claws! And apparently can extend up to 3 feet.
Then we have unnamed guy with a normal left arm and 3 cyber arms on the right (Fourarm?)
Cyblade has a cyber body, maybe? Not quite sure why you’d wear a thong on the outside of a costume. Yea yea yea, Superman and all. But a thong?
Impact – big guy. Cyber body. Is he just a head? We don’t know yet.
Unamed guy with glowy eyes and more cyber.
And now to the story:
Velocity is on the run from Blue Leader and her friends. Someone is watching her. Its Ripclaw!
Cut to Fourarm(?) watching a politician give a speech. Turns out it is a mutant running for mayer. Suddenly theres an assassination attempt. He pulls out all of his guns and fires. The guy runs outside and runs into Cyblade who make a fist and takes him out remotely.
Next up is Impact running through a car WHOMPRANKRUNCH!
Ripclaw distracts the bad guys, now named Cyberdata (so 90s!). Flying guy shows up and blasts at Cyberdata and Velocity gets away.
Weird scene with an Eqyptian lady saying she is mother of the mutants and a video call from Domin Zadrok.
Then we have a flashback to Velocity’s dad taking her to the basement (for some unseen horrors) and mother does nothing to help. Then she wakes up somewhere that she doesn’t know. She’s with Chip and Timmie (who isn’t the little boy he looks like, but Totally Independent Mobile Machine Intelligence Experiment). News says mutants firebombed city hall as Cyberdata shows up, blows up the hideout and confronts Velocity. THE END (I do have questions about Ballistic’s costume choice. Does not seem like it will be effective in any pose other than this).
So, nothing earthshattering. Zero back story or characterization except for Velocity, but that’s ok. It’s a #1. It was a time when the Image guys had carte blanch to do whatever they wanted. Silvestri, coming off X-Men, did a team book with lots of different but no so different characters. And a heavy Cable influence on them with the glowy eye and cyber parts.
I can certainly see why fans loved this stuff. “You liked the art on X-Men? Well here’s even more!”
Not bad. Entertaining. Its not high concept, but it wasn’t meant to be. Welcome to the Image Age, readers. Strap in! Its gonna be a fun ride!
If this was something you loved, let me know. Fill in the details!
EDIT:
OK, FourArm is actually called Stryker. Got it.